


i'm looking for a place to start (and everything feels so different, now)

by Yevynaea



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Blood, Death, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Recovery, Episode: e060-066 The Stolen Century Parts 1-7, Family, Family Feels, Flashbacks, Forgiveness, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Intrusive Thoughts, Love, Nicknames, Non-Graphic Violence, One Shot, Platonic Cuddling, Post-Canon, Recovery, Repairing Relationships, Team as Family, Temporary Character Death, except not really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-26
Updated: 2017-10-26
Packaged: 2019-01-23 16:22:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12511412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yevynaea/pseuds/Yevynaea
Summary: Taako's eight deaths, and Lucretia's connection to each of them.Or: A handful of conversations, post-Story & Song.Or: Forgiveness is tricky, but they'll be alright.





	i'm looking for a place to start (and everything feels so different, now)

**Author's Note:**

> As the tags & summary suggest, this is a fic partially about Taako dying a lot, but nothing is graphically described or intensely written; I wanted to mostly focus on his and Lucretia's relationship.

So many years, taken, twisted. So many things that went wrong, that were wrong. A decade isn't easy to forgive and forget.

Then again.

So many years together, family. So many things that went wrong and they were always there for each other no matter _what_ and that just makes it worse that he can't trust-- a decade isn't easy to forgive and forget but a century of love is bone deep and soul-bright and Taako has his whole family back now except for _her_.

He hates her. He loves her. He can't ever forgive her. He can't stay angry forever.

 _Gods_ , Taako hates having feelings.

  
  


_The first time Taako dies, it's because they were careless and lost track of time. They’ve been searching for the Light and trying to get to know this world-- Davenport, Barry, and Merle mostly stay with the ship, this cycle, looking for the Light on a planet that seems_ made _of light, and Lucretia would be doing the same except the twins keep dragging her out to go to parties in the city with them._

_“The year’s almost up, you have to come at least once,” Lup said tonight, and Lucretia sighed and agreed and now she's surrounded by loud music and chatter and alcohol and sweat and this is so not her scene oh gods why did she agree to this--_

_“Come on, Lucy, come dance,” Taako grins, tossing an arm around her shoulders, grounding her and pulling her away from the wall simultaneously. “If you just watch and never_ live _, you're gonna get_ real _bored real fast if these cycles don't end.”_

_Lucretia doesn't like to think about the cycles ending or not ending, and all that might entail either way._

_“I was perfectly happy on the ship,” she protests, but does nothing to move away from Taako, to return to her place leaning against the wall. He drags her onto the dance floor with an amused roll of his eyes. Lucretia can see Magnus and Lup across the club, downing shots of some luminescent blue liquor. And then Taako spins her, and she tries to enjoy herself, tries to dance the way he is, swaying and spinning to the fast beat of this world's strange music._

_After they dance, they drink a little, and then they all dance some more, and it's_ fun _and Lucretia’s completely lost track of how long they've been there by the time the screams start._

_“Fuck!” both twins yell at once, when the first of the Hunger comes through the club doors. Lup pushes Lucretia toward Taako, who practically spins her into Magnus’ arms._

_“Go!” Taako orders, drawing his wand. They run-- they all four run, out of the club and back in the direction of the Starblaster, Magnus leading the charge and the twins covering their backs._

_The ship is getting ready to take off as they come up on it, bond engine humming. Magnus starts climbing aboard, and Lucretia follows._

_There's a scream. When Lucretia looks, Lup’s stopped running. She's got ahold of Taako’s arm, trying to pull him free from three black-opal figures tearing into him._

_“Let's go!” someone shouts-- Magnus, Lucretia thinks, and the ship is lurching into the air. Lup looks at it, then back at her brother. Says something too quiet for Lucretia to hear, and Taako replies through grit teeth._

_Lup lets go of Taako and makes a run for the Starblaster. As Lup leaps up and grabs the bottom of the ladder, Lucretia makes brief eye contact with Taako before he's completely swarmed._

_The first thing she does when he reforms on the deck is to hug him-- after Lup, of course._

_“Next time, I'm staying on the ship,” Lucretia says solemnly, and, though still shaken from his first experience of death, Taako laughs and hugs her back._

 

“Next time, I'm staying home,” Taako says solemnly, and, on the ground in front of him, Lucretia turns her head away to hide a smile.

“Oh come on,” Magnus almost claps a hand on Taako's shoulder, then clearly thinks better of it and rests it in the middle of Taako’s back instead. “It's a party!”

“A party for you and your new _dogs_ ,” Taako amends, frowning as a particularly large dog brushes past him, knocking him briefly off balance and getting fur on his pants.

“Yeah!” Magnus ignores his friend's tone and willfully interprets Taako's complaint as excitement. “How about you, ‘Cretia, having fun?”

Lucretia is sitting on her knees on the floor, petting at least four puppies and quietly laughing while they compete for her attention, and she just nods. When her gaze shifts from Magnus to Taako, he turns on a dime and heads toward the snacks table without saying a word.

  
  


_“This seems… weird,” Lucretia admits, rubbing_ _one of Taako’s long ears between her fingers, and rolling two seven-sided dice with the other hand. She rolls a 1 and a 2._

 _“Ear rubs are only weird if you make ‘em weird,” Taako replies with a lazy smile, not taking his eyes off the game going on in front of them. He's got one hand above the table and one hand hidden under it, and_ fuck _if Lucretia isn't grateful this dimension doesn't seem to have any magic users, because no one notices or cares about the wand he's holding._

 _“No, not--” Lucretia sighs, gestures around them, to the pirates they're surrounded by, all laughing and jeering and pointing various weapons in their direction. “_ This _, Taako. This isn't weird to you? Gambling for our lives because we got captured by underwater pirates?”_

_“Last cycle it was jello people. Before that it was a city of undead robots. You expecting ‘normal' to show up on this ride any time soon?” Taako asks, shaking the dice in his hand. Lucretia keeps rubbing his ear, not sure which of them the gesture is actually supposed to be calming._

_“Fair point,” Lucretia says. She's nervous, so nervous. She's never died, yet-- and isn't that an insane thought to have-- and she doesn't want to. She’s_ supposed _to be back on the ship. She isn't an adventurer, a risk-taker. She’s the_ writer _. Yet here she is. She sighs. “You know these dice are weighted against us, right?”_

_“Yep,” Taako replies. “How long’ve we been on this world?”_

_“Ten months, three weeks, and four days,” Lucretia answers easily. She's been more careful about keeping track, recently. They all have._

_“Cool, cool. My first death was lame, I'm gonna make this one good. Give you somethin’ impressive to write about, next cycle, not just ‘got taken off guard by Hunger.’” Taako says, finally rolling the two dice in his hand. Lucretia eyes their results: a 10 between all four dice, one of the highest rolls they've gotten yet. The pirates laugh, and Lucretia finally lets go of Taako’s ear, and Taako grins wide and dangerous, casting Scorching Ray from under the table._

 

Lucretia shakes off the memory, makes herself look away from Taako's ears when he flicks them in annoyance. He's staring her down with open suspicion and hostility, now, nothing like the easy, lazy smile she can still see in her mind's eye.

“You back with us?” he asks. He's wearing one of his old IPRE jackets over a sleek black dress. Lucretia has her old clothes, everything from her room on the Starblaster, locked away. Now she suddenly wants her old robe so badly it becomes a physical ache.

“Yes,” she says. “Sorry.”

She doesn't know who to be, in front of Taako. She is no longer Lucy, the IPRE’s shy writer, or ‘Cretia, confident and self-discovered. She is not Madame Director, unruffled and wise. She is just _Lucretia_ , broken and guilty and lonely, all conditions of her own making.

“Good. Like I was saying--” Taako takes his eyes off her to examine his nails, and she lets out a quiet breath-- “for _some_ godsforsaken reason Ango wants to stay with you sometimes when he comes home from school this summer, so we need to work out schedule details.”

“Right,” Lucretia says. Taako looks at her again.

“Even split; you, me, Mags, and Lup and Barold?”

“That-- that seems less than ideal for Angus, all the moving around,” Lucretia says.

“We're working on putting Teleportation Circles...basically everywhere. Agnes isn't quite at the right level to use them by himself yet, but you or me or Lup should be able to help him in the meantime,” Taako waves a dismissive hand, then grins for just a second, giving her a glimpse of his sharp canines as his ears move to point straight up in the air, gleeful and threatening. “Unless you don't want me to be able to get into your house whenever I want.”

“Teleportation Circles would be smart. Might not feel as difficult for him to move back and forth.” Lucretia doesn't take the bait, and Taako looks almost disappointed.

  
  


He dreams in once-lost memories. His subconscious trying to help him re-know a hundred years, or something. Every time he meditates-- and every time he sleeps, because after a century of he and Lup being the only elves on board they just got used to sleeping when the others did, and that carried-- he dreams of another conversation, another fight, another world.

 

_“Hey Lucy,” Taako says, pained, on his back in this planet’s tall scarlet grass. Lucretia stands over him, hands over her mouth, horrified sobs escaping her. Taako thinks that maybe it's good the grass here is red-- so much blood is already shocking, it would be worse if it didn't blend in._

_“Taako, hang on, I can get--”_

_“N-no. Get everyone back-- fuck, get them to the ship, and stay-- stay there,” Taako interrupts. “I-I have no idea when those things'll be back.”_

_Lucretia’s head jerks up, scanning the clearing around them before determining it's safe for the moment._

_“I can't just leave you,” she says, quiet._

_“Ha! Lucy. Lu. Lucretia. Look-- look at me.” Taako can't really move much to gesture, emphasize his point, but he figures the fact that he's got deep, heavily bleeding claw marks up and down his body is emphasis enough. He’s pretty sure some of his bones are visible, gleaming and white; he thinks he's in shock, or something stupid like that. That's gotta be the reason he’s_ talking _and not unconscious yet._

_“Where are Lup and Barry?” Lucretia asks. Taako closes his eyes._

_“I… I think Lup is over-- over there,” he grits out, motioning with his head as best he can. Lucretia’s shadow disappears from above him, he can hear her footsteps moving away through the knee-high grass, then another choked sound when she finds what's left of Lup. Taako's been trying not to look._

_“And-- oh, gods-- and Barry?” Lucretia asks._

_“They dragged him f-further away,” Taako says. “You should_ go _.”_

_Lucretia takes a deep breath. Then another._

_“Okay,” she agrees. She comes to stand by him again, kneels and stains the front of her clothes with his blood in order to press a kiss to his forehead. “Do… do you want me to leave you?”_

_And something in her tone makes Taako meet her eyes. This is not an offer to try and find help, or to try and drag him home. This is a very different offer. It won't be the first time any of the seven have killed each other-- or the last. But it will be the first time Lucretia has. Taako knows it will change her, will eat at her, even after he comes back next cycle._

_“No, I don't,” he whispers anyway._

_Lucretia has tears running unhindered down her face as she pulls her wand, points it straight at him._

 

Taako jolts awake violently when he dies in the dream. Next to him, Kravitz stirs.

“ _Fuck,”_ Taako breathes, trying to ground himself, shake the memory away.

“Hmm?” Krav asks, blinking sleep out of his eyes, scooting closer in the bed to wrap hesitant arms around Taako, who gratefully nestles further into the embrace.

“Just remembered a shitty cycle,” Taako tries to sound flippant and nonchalant, and if he fails, Kravitz doesn't call him on it.

  
  


_She is alone. She survives the whole year alone. The others-- she assumes they’re dead, and she can't risk finding out. She has to keep the ship airborne, has to stay alive, has to get out at the end of the year and bring them back._

_The first couple weeks of the next cycle they drag blankets and pillows out into the Starblaster’s living room and build a nest, and they all sleep together like a pile of kittens with Lucretia in the middle. She doesn't ever want to let go._

_“We won't leave you alone again, motek,” Taako promises. Lucretia's heard the term before, but usually from Lup, and rarely directed at her._

 

“Ma’am?” Angus knocks quietly on the open bedroom door, and Lucretia looks up from the worn blankets she's finally unpacking out of their box.

“Angus,” she puts a blanket down, takes another out of the box. “What's wrong?”

“I just couldn't sleep,” Angus dodges the question with a small shrug, tugging at the sleeves of his pajama shirt. “I-- sometimes at the others’ houses, um…” he trails off, wavering in the doorway. Lucretia is struck, not for the first time, by how young he is. He's so smart, in so many ways, mature and clever and witty; it's so easy-- too easy-- to forget he's not even thirteen yet. ( _Magnus was fairly young, too,_ her brain reminds her, unhelpfully, _barely twenty for a hundred years. And how much older when you stole his fuckin’ life away, huh?_ Lucretia ignores the thought, and the fact that her inner voice has taken on a certain elf’s familiar tone.)

“Would you like to sleep in here, tonight?” she asks, and after a moment's hesitation, Angus nods.

“Thank you, ma’am,” he says, smiling gratefully as he moves to get into the bed. With the lights already dimmed and the time _well_ past midnight, he seems to doze off quickly. Lucretia takes the last blanket out, then puts the now-empty box down on the floor, shaking out the blankets, in all their different colors and materials from so many worlds. She piles them around the edges of the bed to make a sort of nest, before turning the lights all the way off and climbing into her bed next to Angus.

“Goodnight, Angus,” she says softly, unsure if he's already asleep.

“Goodnight, Mom,” comes the very awake reply, and Lucretia’s breath catches.

  
  


_The fifth and sixth times Taako dies are in the same cycle. First, he gets killed by a vampire. Then he gets_ turned _by said vampire, and spends the next eight months locked up in the ship drinking animal blood and getting increasingly more feral while Lup, Barry, Merle, and Davenport all use their respective fields to search for both the Light and a cure._

_While they're gone, Taako gets loose and attacks Lucretia, and Magnus has to put him down._

_(By the end of the cycle, Lucretia, Davenport, and Barry have lost themselves to the same bloodthirst, and Merle is just lost, never returned from his quest for a cure. Lup and Magnus pilot the Starblaster to the next world alone. Lucretia spends a long few weeks unable to look Taako in the eye, flinching every time he shows his canines even though, like hers, they've returned to their normal, pre-vamp level of sharpness._

_After some nudges in the right direction from Lup, he apologizes with a batch of lavender-lemon cupcakes. They spend that night curled together in his room, because cuddling has become the Starblaster’s most common form of rest, at some point, and Lucretia is comforted by Taako’s heartbeat when she rests her forehead against his chest._

_“I'm sorry,” he mutters._

_“It's okay,” she responds, just as softly._

 

“That’s familiar,” she raises an eyebrow, tries to look like her heart didn't just do a flip in her chest at the sight of Taako and Angus appearing in her living room in matching vampire costumes.

“Hello Mom-- ma’am,” says Angus, ever the diplomat, still trying not to call them by parental titles in front of the other.

“Kid’s idea,” Taako shrugs, nonchalant and obviously more than a little tipsy judging by how he's swaying on his feet. A drop of fake blood drops from his chin to Lucretia’s carpet. "Oops, shit, I just reapplied this, I thought it was dry though,” he smears the ‘blood' across his lower face with one hand, making the effect somehow even more disturbing.

“Coming from a party?” Lucretia asks, as Angus brushes past her with a quick hug and disappears into the bathroom, presumably to change.

“All Hallow’s at Ren’s place,” Taako nods, then yawns with a mouth of fake fangs.

“How much sugar did Angus eat?” Lucretia can't help but inquire. She forgot All Hallow's was even coming up.

“ _Psh_. Not enough,” Taako replies. “Kid barely has any kind of sweet tooth. Tiny heathen.”

Lucretia smiles at the fondness underlying Taako's words. He steps back into the Teleportation Circle. “See ya soon, hijito,” he calls to Angus.

“Bye, Da-- sir!” comes the reply, through the bathroom door.

“We should talk to him about that,” Lucretia says.

“Sure, motek. ‘Night,” Taako throws up a peace sign in goodbye, and Teleports away, not seeming to have noticed his slip. Too drunk or too tired to realize what he's just called her after the last couple years of cold ‘ _Lucretia_ ’s and sarcastic ‘ _Madame_ _Director_ ’s.

“Goodnight,” she replies softly, to the empty room.

  
  


_The seventh time Taako dies, he’s just…_ tired. _Lup is dead, killed within the first month of the cycle because they’d watched the Light fall amidst a creepy forest cult of murder-y sacrifices, and they hadn't fucking_ realized _that's what was happening until Lup and Dav had already gone “missing”._

_The rest of them escape with the Light, quickly find a less inhabited part of the continent to settle in for the year._

_Not even a week after they land again, Merle wakes up early and goes out onto the deck of the Starblaster to find Taako hanging from the rigging. Lucretia only sees the body once it's been taken down, covered in a white sheet. They bury him the same day._

 

She's been staring at the knife in her hand for a while now.

“‘Cretia,” the nickname startles her into looking up, to where Taako is standing next to her with a bowl and a mixing spoon, expression untroubled but ears held taut, tilted down and forward in worry. “You good? Because I don't think Lulu and Barold would appreciate you kickin’ it in their kitchen.”

“And on their anniversary, no less,” Lucretia deadpans. Taako's ears twitch but don't otherwise move. Lucretia sighs, resumes chopping the vegetables on the counter in front of her. “I’m fine. Just spaced out for a moment.”

“You were looking at that knife… weird,” Taako finishes, and Lucretia hesitates before sliding one sliced mushroom to the side and starting on the next one. She knows what he means.

“I'm nearly a hundred and forty years old, Taako; I think I know how to ignore intrusive thoughts by now,” she quips.

“You’d _think_ ,” Taako mutters to himself. “Fine, whatever. Add those to the créme sauce when you're done, then start on the spinach.”

  
  


_The eighth time Taako dies, the Hunger gets him again. Lucretia doesn't see it happen, but in the next cycle he tells her about it so she can write everything down._

_“We're coming up on cycle one-hundred pretty-- well, not quick, per se,” he gives a humourless laugh. “...’Cretia, how long do you think--”_

_“We have plans, remember?” Lucretia snaps her journal shut, and Taako's ears twitch at the sound. “Next time we get the Light early, that's it. We'll be… it'll be_ over _.”_

_And maybe she's trying to sound more confident and sure of that than she really is, and maybe Taako sees through her easily, but he smiles anyway._

_“Yeah,” he agrees, playing along._

 

“I don't forgive you,” Taako says conversationally, settling next to her in the sand under her umbrella. Lucretia’s hands tighten on the book she's holding, her whole body tensing before she visibly forces herself to relax.

A little ways down the beach, Merle looks over, expression conflicted, and Taako waves him off. _Don't worry, old man._ Merle still doesn't look comfortable, but he doesn't approach.

“I don't expect you to,” Lucretia finally replies.

“Good. Because you-- you hurt us all bad.” Taako holds up one hand when Lucretia starts to speak again, takes his eyes off of her and stares at the sand because he doesn't want to see her expression. “And, I know the others have… have been able to deal with that. They've more or less forgiven you-- fuck, even Dav sends you letters, don't think I haven't seen ‘em on your coffee table.”

“They were very angry letters, at first,” Lucretia points out.

“Shut the fuck up, 'Cretia,” Taako says, without any heat. Lucretia does. “I just, I don't _know_ , if I'll _ever_ be ready to forgive you. But I still love you. I still-- you were family for a godsdamn _century_ , Lucy, and I don't want to-- to lose that. I don't want to keep feeling like I've lost that.”

Lucretia is silent for a while, and Taako stares resolutely at the sand.

“I love you too,” Lucretia says, barely louder than a breath. Her voice wavers with unshed tears when she speaks again. “Taako, I'm so sorry.”

“So you keep saying,” Taako teases, hastily wiping away his own tears before they can fall. “Like a broken record.”

Lucretia laughs, then sniffles, wipes her own tears away.

“Sorry,” she repeats, and Taako snorts in amusement, shoves gently at her arm.

“We're…  I still kinda hate you a little bit, not gonna lie. But we're gonna be okay,” he says. And maybe he's trying to sound more confident and sure of that than he really is, and maybe Lucretia sees through him easily, but she smiles anyway.

“Okay,” she echoes, playing along.


End file.
